Month: April 2016

This is a question I often hear asked and maybe this response will help… Consider space. How many people have gone to space? Who do we remember? Certainly there is Neil Armstrong the first man on the moon, but who else? There is one man who came from humble beginnings, growing up on a farm. He watched the moon landing and was hooked. He grew up to become an engineer and air force fighter pilot and followed that by becoming a test pilot for experimental planes. In 1992 he joined the astronaut program and first flew in in space in November 1995, following in the footsteps of many other astronauts.

But there was one thing that made this man stand apart. Whilst he was not the first to tweet from space, that honour going to to TJ Creamer in January 2010, this man blew social media apart in 2013 by posting stories and photos from the international space station. His name has now become synonymous with space and social media. I speak of course of Chris Hadfield who now has over 1.4 million followers from Twitter and all because he took a different approach to social media.

He combined his love of space and photography and sent it back to earth in entertaining posts and images, not to mention his YouTube video version of Space Oddity which has had close to 26 million views. He has carried on to make other videos such as An Astronaut’s Guide to …Movember, BBQ, Camping, short humorous video clips that have kept his profile active.

These are the keys to success in Social Media – stay active, share what interests you, follow like-minded people and build your personal brand. You could be the next Chris Hadfield!